


Succession duty

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Legacy of Responsibility [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Irondad, Morgan is cute, Morgan is scary smart, Parent Pepper Potts, Revelations, The country house, Tony is a good dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 19:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18880120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: Peter and May visit the lakeside house.Some revelations.





	Succession duty

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, the stories in this series are out of order, definitely. I write them as they come. I hope they will make sense, but if not, ask :)

He hadn't really expected to ever find himself in that place again, not after the funeral. He had been actually expecting to receive a kind message from Ms Potts-Stark regarding the termination of his so-called internship at Stark Industries and he had already been making provisional plans how to deal with maintaining his newest - and quite beat-up - suit, without access to Mr Stark's high-tech help. But then, five days after the memorial service, ten days after the Return, when everything was still very wobbly and settling into place, a phonecall came. To Aunt May. From Ms Potts-Stark, indeed. But to a completely different effect than he had been expecting. It resulted in him taking a cab over to the Stark Tower and being given the very best and the very saddest gift he had ever received.

Since then, Pepper had been incredibly gracious and open with her invitations, support and all kinds of help. She was also the iron fist that ruled in a velvet glove. There were things Pepper Potts-Stark demanded from the reality and reality better goddamn delivered, or there were going to be Words Exchanged.

And Peter went along, because who was he to argue with reality - or with the CEO of Stark Industries?

First, Peter was not to call Pepper "Mrs Stark", "Miss Potts", "Ms Stark" or "ma'am". Or "Boss". She was quite fine with being on first-name basis with someone less than half her age, so even though Peter was _not_ as comfortable calling her by her given name, he caved in. With certain hesitancy. But he did.

Secondly, Peter had undergone wardrobe expansion. Pepper had taken him suit shopping. Not the fun kind of suits, as these he was tinkering with at the lab by himself, but rather the kind that came with a visit to someone else's workshop, on a high-end street where nothing had price tags, because if you had to ask for the price, you were already too poor.

Pepper claimed it was his birthday present from her - and an investment in the company resources - because, as she said, what else could she get him, when he could build everything else he needed by himself. So she was going to make sure he had at least one proper, business-like suit.

"Investors like to see the young and scrappy designers-next-door in hoodies or t-shirts, but I think..." she smiled as she handed her card at the discreet and well-designed till, "that I may need you to show dressed up, just from time to time, at a meeting or two. These will be the kinds of meetings for which Peter Parker, the friendly neighbourhood inventor, should be able to present himself in a classic type of business armour."

He sighed.

"At least it's comfortable," he held the door for her. "I mean, any suit I tried before was a _nightmare_. Pulling, pinching..."

She lowered her sunglasses and gave him a long look.

"Tony would have never picked a tailor unable to sew a garment which would not constrict the owner's movements."

He caught himself mid-turn.

"That was..." he blinked. "I mean, here... How much...?"

"Birthday gift," she reminded him coolly. "Now, get in the car. You do have homework to do for tomorrow, after all."

Nineteen and employed at the biggest tech company in the US... And still required to write his Biology essays by hand, like everyone else. He managed to squash the need for a hysterical giggle firmly.

"Thank you, Pepper," he saw her fleeting smile from over her phone.

"Come by the Tower tomorrow, Morrie wants to give you _her_ present, too."

And that was the third thing. Laboratory, in itself, was impressive. He had free rein in there, able to test anything, any time, any way. Everything he and Mr Stark had been working on was there. Maybe a bit dusty in places, but it was.

But there was also the rest of the Stark Tower - the other labs, the workshops, storages, offices, computer rooms and who knows what else. To which Peter had received full, unfettered access. He would never make use of it, obviously, unless there was some kind of extreme emergency, but he had been added to the building "unrestricted" list (one that contained Ms Potts -- Pepper! -- Happy, Mr Stark, Miss Romanov (the last two marked in red on the display) and Colonel Rhodes) and given training on the fire drill, gas leak drill, toxic leak drill, irradiation incident drill, aerial attack drill and, additionally, personally delivered by Happy, "something comes out of a sewer and wants to fuck us up" drill.

"How probable is that?" he asked after Happy had allowed him to climb down from the aerial he had been using as the potential boost for a long jump.

"Going by the statistics from the last ten years, it is one of the few things that had _not_ happened yet. My assumption is that if we train for it, it won't happen. Thus, we train, so that it doesn't happen."

"But these other things, they happen, normally. Like a fire or a gas leak."

"Well, but they _are_ normal. I'm now working on 'monsters come out of outer space and try to eat us' drill. I will test the instruction booklet on you."

"But that had already happened..."

Happy looked at him grimly.

"As the head of security, it is my duty to make sure it doesn't happen _again_."

"What about 'A Norse god comes visiting and tries to possess us' drill?"

"You've been watching old security tapes, kiddo?"

"Mr Stark left me the indexes for the most important events from the last conflicts. I'm supposed to watch and learn. Including adding... things. To the armour."

That was the point when Happy simply patted his shoulder (which felt very much like an attempt at breaking it) and left him to his tinkering.

It was true, nothing ever came up the sewers and tried to fuck them up. Point for Happy.

 

Pepper's proposition for him and Aunt May to spend the long weekend at the cottage was tempting. Aunt May could relax, Pepper could stop being The CEO, Morrie would show him her favourite haunts and he... he would finally get to see the country house - other than during the funeral, that is.

Aunt May had gratefully accepted, Peter had conveyed his enthusiasm and so, after a longish ride in a rather luxurious and spacious car, they found themselves at the lakeside, relaxing in various places all over the not-so-little property.

Pepper had shown him Mr Stark's workroom and Morrie had shown him the not-yet-tree-house which Mr Stark had supposedly been planning to affix to the tree but never got around to even moving to a better place in the yard.

One glance told Peter how many security cameras were pointed at the wooden structure.

 _Seven_.

He kind of guessed that there was no way the house - and its occupant - had ever been going to end up in a tree. He was almost nearly quite sure it was already well attached to the ground. Probably to the bedrock below the house.

Now that they had left Stark Tower and its complicated security far behind them, the restrictions lessened, but Peter was sure there were safety procedures related to what went on in the country house. He would most probably learn them very soon, but for the time being he was getting used to the unnatural - for him - stillness around him.

The turmoil he felt inside was much worse than in the city, conversely.

 

He hadn't been expecting it to hit him that hard. Silly, silly Peter.

The beginning was very innocent - the school let them out early on that Friday, he went home, packed his backpack and helped Aunt May to carry her bag and the picnic basket downstairs. They had been picked up by one of the bigger cars, with Happy at the wheel and the four of them riding in the elegant, comfortable passenger compartment. Aunt May had looked slightly flustered with her surroundings. He... he was fine. At least it wasn't any of Mr Stark's car he had seen before. When Pepper handed Morgan her tablet and the kid immersed herself in the world of logical puzzles (these pudgy little fingers could move surprisingly quickly if there was a prize to be won), he stretched on the seat next to her and put his headphones on, peeking at the puzzles from time to time to gauge the level of problems the kid was tackling. They looked surprisingly complicated for a five-year-old - if he could remember correctly what _he_ had been doing at that age.

_Probably sculpting wonky play-doh dinosaurs._

He pulled the headphones off in order to ask Pepper what the software behind the games was, but the moment he stopped the music, he heard, "...Tony's design, especially for her. Based on some book he read, but he never told me which one, and I'm not very much into fantasy. Something about a girl who had a book that talks to her."

"The Diamond Age," he blurted out, then blushed when they both stared at him. "Neal Stephenson. Mr Stark made _A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer_ for Morgan?"

"I... I suppose so," Pepper looked uncertainly between them. "He had spent a lot of time on it... When we found out she was going to be a she. I mean, he had built the tech and spent hours writing code and recording. When she was born, I was--" she grimaced, "--not very well. Tony took care of her most of the time. He sat in the workshop with her sleeping on his shoulder or in a wrap carrier and I thought he was reading or thinking aloud, but then he told me he was recording things for Morgan that will help her along, in case--" she trailed off.

"He knew something was going to happen," Peter said, slightly distracted by the sudden thought. There was something. "From what he recorded for me..."

_Oh._

Pepper just smiled at him tightly.

_Oh._

 

Pepper never said it out loud. There were documents, security setups, requests for opinion - brought to him by Pepper, never anyone else, no matter who was the author - which contributed to the whole thing about him being the nearly official yet not publicly acknowledged heir to Iron Man's legacy. Kind of "everyone knows that" thing, if "everyone" meant the Tower employees.

Access to the lab. Access to the company resources. Happy, who was treating him as a part of his herd, one more person for Happy to take care of.

And then there were the suits.

Three Iron Man suits carefully modelled to Peter's thinner frame.

Their colouring and decoration were adjustable and set to look like his own Spider-Man light armour when he first found them -- probably to remove any doubt as to their intended recipient -- but now he knew what kind of firepower they were packed with. They had been fitted with both the functionalities of his own design - web slingers, netted pseudo-wings and the adjustable sense filters that allowed him to function during the fights - and a variety of combat-mode accessories that Mr Stark had installed in the previous attempts at enhancing his capabilities... And then there were the purely Iron Man elements, because, apparently, whatever you think, Peter, your mentor is going to make sure you have offensive weaponry at your disposal.

Tony Stark had armed him up for a war.

He could reasonably guess that the most probable explanation for it all was nearly five, liked her LEGOs and had sat next to him on their way here - and then fell asleep at some point, dropping the tablet into Peter's lap - he promptly handed it over to Pepper - and catching his hand in her sleep, immobilising him for the rest of the ride. But he was fine with it. Quite fine. Comforting Morgan Stark was... Was OK.

Apparently it was what her father had wanted, too, and who was Peter to deny him that wish.

 

And now, there he was, sitting up in the attic, on the sill of a square window overlooking the road coming up to the house. Listening to the remote sound of waves.

A cry of a water bird.

Wind rustling in the leaves.

Small, homey sounds of cooking from the ground floor - Aunt May convinced Pepper to forgo taking any kind of hired help and declared that she would be happy to cook and that it would be better and more relaxing for all of them just to be there without anyone intruding.

He would probably be called down any moment now, asked to peel the potatoes or whatever it was that Aunt May decided she needed.

But for the time being, he watched the road and tried to get his emotions under better regulation. Emotions that had been very thoroughly stirred up almost the moment they came back from inspecting the grounded not-really-treehouse. Morgan had quite artlessly shown him around "Daddy's" studio. A large, spacious room, full of books, mementos, gadgets, half-built (or maybe half-stripped) pieces of mechanisms and vinyl records.

Also, photos.

Well, there were some photos, not that many, in fact. A portrait shot of Pepper, on the desk. One that seemed to be a wedding photo, in a smaller frame, next to it. What was obviously a grainy, low-light snapshop of a newborn Morgan made the third, and a large, desaturated picture of ethereal, very tired-looking Pepper with a small bundle in her arms, was on the wall, next to the desk.

And then there were two more on the shelf in the corner, where Morgan had dragged him immediately, very excited about what she was about to show him.

The first one was black-and-white portrait of an older gentleman in a white shirt, looking seriously at the camera.

"That's grandpa Howard," she said, very matter-of-factly, and Peter stared in amazement, at the very homey image of the founder of the company he himself now was working for, the man who had... who had... created _all of this_. Or laid foundation for all of these _other_ things to be created by his son.

"And look here, it's you!" Morgan pointed out the second frame. "Daddy showed me once. It _is_ you, right?"

She was quite right, it was. The second photo, just behind the one of Mr Stark Senior, was of the two of them. Peter and Mr Stark. Tony. And Peter's rather fake Stark Enterprises internship application.

"Damn," he whispered before he caught himself and looked down at very scandalised Morgan.

"Peter!" she whispered. "Bad word!"

"Sorry."

Mollified, she poked the glass of the photo.

"Dad said you used to work with him. Before that bad thing that happened to everyone. Before I was born. And that one day you will come here and stay with us a lot and that I will know it is you because you would look just the same as that photo."

He sank to the floor, taking the photo with him, bringing him closer to her eye level.

"Dad said he kept it like this on the shelf, because of the arthritic permission," she said, leaning on his shoulder, pulling at the photo to look at it again.

"Of the what?"

"That thing in numbers. When things get bigger with every step. There is an exercise on this in my tablet that I'm supposed to work on. The same thing gets added to the previous ones, making the next one more."

He froze for a moment.

"You mean arithmetic progression?" he checked. "When each number is bigger from the previous one by the same value?"

"That's what I said."

"M-hm. And he kept it like this, on the shelf in his study?"

"Yes. Grandfather, Daddy and then you."

It was, quite justifiably, a bit of an "oh, shit" moment for Peter, but he managed to keep that sentiment to himself. He could pride himself on the fact that his hands did not shake - not a lot - as he carefully put the photo back where he had taken it from at Morgan's insistence.

"OK, now, I _think_ I've heard someone saying we had popsicles in the freezer," he suggested, trying for a light tone (and failing miserably). "And I think you could use one."

Morgan definitely thought she could use one, too, and Pepper didn't even protest too much when they showed up in order to filch something from the fridge.

He sneaked away when mother and daughter went to Morgan's bedroom in order to unpack her weekend bag and, for a moment, nobody was paying any attention to him.

Upstairs, upstairs, to the attic he climbed, making his footsteps light and soft, barely disturbing the thin layer of dust that had gathered there despite the housekeeping efforts of Pepper's staff.

The window looked inviting and adequate as a seat to pick for some heavy thinking. Not that he could really _think_ about much - there being way too many signals in his mind, all pinging off each other and meeting in random explosions of fireworks.

He laid his head on his knees and tried to make his mind calm down.

There were two words stuck in his brain quite indelibly.

_Arithmetic progression._

"He's been dead for half a year," Peter drew in a heavy lungful of air, "and he still manages to surprise me."

The absolute stillness of the attic made no reply to that statement.

"Very well then," he heard his own voice break, just slightly. "Let's see what I can do with this legacy."


End file.
